All Was Golden In The Sky
by VickyVicarious
Summary: A series of short vignettes that explore Warren's family, choices, and mindset. Before, during, and after movie.


_//Warren Peace emerged into the world on a cold, blustery day; but the hospital room was warm and cheery, and his mother smiled down at his silent form, his father standing by her side, his hand on her shoulder, both blissful, unsuspecting\\_

-xxx-

On his first day at Sky High, Warren Peace wore black leather. Tall for his age, he glowered over the rest of the freshman class, the only one who didn't scream during the bus ride. Instead, he just clung to the seat in front of him, his fingers slowly melting the plastic.

-xxx-

"No one talks about my father," he snarled, lifting a fist and feeling the flame ignite itself, ready, waiting for the fight.

The boy backed away, his arms held up in front of his face, his lizard tongue licking nervously at his lips. "I – I'm so sorry, I won't – never, it won't hap- sorry!"

He turned and ran, and Warren sneered. He let the fire flare up once, pulsating and eager, before he dropped his arm and forced it back inside.

-xxx-

"YOU!" Coach Boomer shouted, pointing at the tall boy in the back. "First up! What's your name?"

Warren glanced down; when he looked up at the Coach, his long hair obscured all of his face except for his eyes and his smirk, both angry. "Warren Peace," he said, and there was a hush.

The Coach faltered for a moment, looking briefly surprised, but then waved Warren up onto the platform. "Come on, come on, we don't have all day!" Once the teenager stood next to him, he eyed him momentarily, then said, suddenly – without any warning whatsoever – "Car!"

The car fell from the ceiling. Warren looked up in time to duck, but he wasn't quite fast enough to escape it completely; with a loud noise smashing noise, the car collided with both him and, seconds later, the ground, crushing Warren beneath it.

There was a pause, just long enough for everyone to be worried that he'd died – Boomer looked a cross between worried and secretly satisfied – and then the car shifted oddly. No, not shifted. It was… melting?

The tires were starting to lose their shape, dripping towards the floor, when suddenly the entire car flew up in the air with a blast of fire. Warren Peace rose from under it, undamaged, an evil grin on his face as he drew back his arms, both covered in flames, to throw fireball after fireball at the car.

Coach Boomer blew his whistle, but Warren didn't seem to notice for several moments, and when he did, he only turned, the flames dying down everywhere except for his clenched fists, where they still lurked, waiting to be released again.

"HERO!"

-xxx-

"Hi, Dad."

Barron Battle's head shot up, and his eyes met those of his son. He smiled, leaning forward, and let a flame lick up around his hand, which he slid forward along the table, palm up, ignoring the fire extinguisher that immediately focused on the spot and followed it.

A matching flame lit up on Warren's skin, and he laid his hand over his father's, the fires mingling into one glowing ball of heat.

"You know, the two of us together, we could bust me out of here, Warren. We could take over the world."

Warren's shook his head slightly, but didn't stop smiling, and didn't let go of his father's hand. "Yeah, sure thing, Dad. Did I tell you I accidentally incinerated my homework today? The teacher didn't believe me, for some reason."

The most evil supervillian of the past century laughed softly, eyes shining love at his son, even as the flame that enveloped their hands grew stronger, licking upwards to the sky. "Used to happen to me all the time when I was your age."

-xxx-

He simply strode into the cafeteria, and sat down at an empty table in the middle of the room, pulling out a book and beginning to read it.

The table was empty every time he walked into the cafeteria after that, and Warren knew why. It didn't bother him; to the contrary, it made him chuckle and have to duck his head to hide the smile.

-xxx-

His hands had caught fire for the first time when he was eight years old.

Warren had been reading a book his father gave him, getting increasingly into the story, when it had been snatched from his hands. His jaw had tightened, his fists had clenched – and then burst into sudden flame that he didn't even notice as he glared at the bully who'd taken _The Giver_ away from him.

"Give it back," Warren had snapped, and to his great surprise, the boy had done so without hesitation, tossing the book at him before turning and running in fear. Warren blinked down at his fists, then gasped as he saw the small flames flickering around them.

He didn't feel burnt, not even hot; in fact, he hadn't really even noticed the flames were there. They were like a part of him that had always been there and which he'd only just noticed, like a birthmark. He examined them carefully, and laughed aloud when he lit a leaf on fire just by picking it up.

He liked this.

-xxx-

A month after his father was put in jail, Warren went out and got his first tattoos; flames snaking around his wrists, always there even when they weren't burning. His father had dragons, and once upon a time, he'd wanted them too – but Warren wasn't stupid, and neither was he willing to forgive his father just yet. The man had _killed_ people.

They were bad people, people who had threatened and hurt and killed other people themselves, but that wasn't the point. And neither was it the point that the money he'd stolen had gone towards his family, each and every time – though it did make forgiving him easier. But still not _easy_.

So Warren got a different tattoo, and it was so like Barron and yet not, that when his mother saw them the next day, flames permanently wrapped around her son's wrists, she hugged him and began to cry.

She still loved his father, no matter how much it hurt her, and so did Warren. He loved his father, but he loved the fire too, and that was why he'd gotten the tattoos.

-xxx-

"Mind if I sit here?" The girl obviously expected to be welcomed, judging by the way she was already sitting down, but Warren didn't even look up from his book. _War And Peace_; his parents just _had_ to make his whole name a literature pun.

"Yes," he snapped, and she paused, frowning at him.

"Does that mean I _can_ sit here, or…"

"It means that I _do _mind, and you can kindly turn around and march out of here unless you want me to set your tail on fire, got it?" Warren finally looked up, piercing her with an intense, disapproving glare, half-rising from his chair, flames beginning to flicker on his fists, and she backed away slowly, fear suddenly on her face.

"Uh… right. Bye!" And she was gone.

Warren shook his head, sat down, and turned back to his book.

-xxx-

The fire is a living beast inside of him, always raging. Coach Boomer's nickname for Warren – 'Hothead' – is surprisingly accurate, because being so in tune with such a wild element means rapidly swinging emotions, and suddenly intense bursts of rage.

Sometimes, Warren wakes up with the desire to blast everything he sees into smithereens; to burn it until it's nothing but shards of twisted metal and glass, no life remaining.

Other days, he feels pleasantly warm and content, like slow embers burning in a fireplace. He gets sluggish and slow, and all he really wants to do is light a candle-sized flicker on his finger and watch it dance in the wind.

Warren has his mother's invulnerability, and his father's pyrotechnics; together, the two could make him one of the world's best fighting machines – but most of the times they merely give him all the turmoiled destruction and emotions of a regular teenager, times three.

-xxx-

Warren first got his job at the Paper Lantern long ago, as a welcome escape from home, where his mother worked hard to bring in enough money for them to live off of, no longer the hero she once was. It was a welcome source of money; that was all – at first.

And then, at some point between learning Chinese and being upgraded from dishwasher to busboy, it became more than that. The bossy but kind owners became like parents to him, and the restaurant a sanctuary. Though the Warren at Sky High was no less genuine than the one in the Paper Lantern, he seemed vastly different.

Wearing his hair back, not hiding his face, and boasting a genuine smile; being peaceful and more open – the Warren of the Paper Lantern was simply Warren without worries or fear or hatred.

But it was always Warren without anger, or the passion that nothing but shooting flames can bring him, and so there's a reason that he was so hostile at Sky High. Because he couldn't ever lose that.

-xxx-

No one seems to remember Warren's mother, other than as the mother of Barron Battle's son, the superhero that married a supervillian.

But there's so much more to her than that. There always was, and once she had been a famous superhero, one of the best, her total invincibility making her a formidable opponent.

Now, she's just a full-time waitress with a teenage son and a husband in jail, who she visits twice a week.

Surprisingly, she's happier than she's ever been.

-xxx-

Sometimes Warren is amazed by the sheer stupidity of the people at Sky High. Not just the students – though god knows none of them have any brains – but the staff, too.

He can't count how many times he's been in discussions with various teachers about his 'lack of control', and his need to calm his temper. They all seem to assume that he's 'troubled', because of his father. That he's trying to live down – or live up to – Battle's reputation. They tell him they can help him, but first he needs to help himself.

They don't understand just how good Warren's control really _is_, just how _much_ he keeps his temper in check. They don't get that if he really wanted to, he could burn down the school before anyone could stop him. He could burn it all down, until it was nothing but the rubble he saw in his dreams, and he'd rise from the ashes like a phoenix come to life, because he was indestructible.

He could do it all, and it would be easy.

Because sometimes Warren wakes up in the morning filled with rage, his entire body covered in fire. Sometimes he sits down and the chair collapses under him, melted to nothing. Sometimes he glares at the sky and his entire body starts to glow with the heat of barely-suppressed flames, right there in public.

Sometimes, he almost loses control.

But he hasn't yet, and the staff is stupid enough to think that when he destroyed the cafeteria, that was him being pushed past his limit. They think that when his entire arms catch fire, instead of just his hands, that he's exerting all his strength.

They think wrong, and something in Warren itches to prove that to them. But his father – of all things – holds him back, because Warren's not (yet?) a villain.

-xxx-

Warren knew his dad's last name was not Peace but Battle long before anyone else. Even before his mother had it confirmed (she'd always known, deep down); let alone the police knew, or the Commander and Jetstream. He knew almost a year or two before; he just _knew_.

He knew when the kid he'd complained about at great length, the one who never freaking left him _alone_, always had to bully him, always had to make him so _angry_ – he knew when that kid was incinerated in one of Battle's fights with yet another (now dead) superhero.

Warren knew, and had known ever since he came home the day after and mentioned it to his father. Barron Battle – known to most of the world at that point as Edward Peace – had looked at him with dark, knowing eyes, and said, "I'm sorry."

Warren had known then, and he hadn't said a word.

-xxx-

Warren had no idea what he wanted to be. A superhero… or a supervillian.

And he knew he'd end up as one or the other; the fire that raged through his blood would allow nothing less, and besides, Warren _liked_ it.

The only thing was, he didn't know which part he liked. The saving-of-innocents or the destroying-of-them. Some days he thought that he honestly didn't care, just so long as he could be fighting.

Playing Save The Citizen didn't help, because honestly, that was nothing like a real situation. Warren could get more hands-on experience just walking down a Sky High hallway.

And he did.

Warren was, in Sky High, unquestionably the bad guy. That was what everyone expected, what had started with his father, what he'd proved to them with his anger and unpredictability. In school, Warren didn't stand up for people. But – and most people didn't notice this – he didn't hurt them, either, unless he was provoked.

…Or very angry.

Speed and Lash caused much more trouble than he did, and yet no one was nearly as afraid of them as they were of Warren. Why?

Warren had no clue.

He looked at real-life examples: his parents. Being a supervillian had brought his father riches, fame, hatred, and jail. His mother, on the other hand, had gone through so much effort, risking her life for the city so many times – only to end up forgotten and poor, barely paying rent each month.

The Strongholds were the only superhero team that seemed to really live the golden life that one would expect of a hero, and it sickened Warren. But, on the other hand… _jail_.

In a way, Warren was stuck; he could never become a superhero, because no one would believe it. That was the reason why his mother had dropped out of the race, apart from his father, and that had to do with her simply not having enough support. Being a superhero didn't pay anything, except by way of rewards and gifts of thanks – and none but the _best_ superheroes got those.

To really succeed as a superhero, one needed the public to back him up, and Warren knew that would never happen for him, not the way things were going.

On the other hand, it would be all too easy to become a supervillian. It was, after all, what was expected of him. But Warren hated doing what was expected of him. Not to mention, he couldn't hurt people in cold blood, and he was pretty sure he'd never work up enough rage to torch the city.

To really succeed as a supervillian, one needed bottomless rage, a grudge, to be insane, or to be desperate, and Warren knew that he lacked those qualities.

So far.

-xxx-

It was funny; Warren had never given second thoughts to Speed and Lash, and yet they seemed to have made him their unofficial nemesis. He seemed to be the only one who could really back them down, though he rarely bothered, and they seemed wary of – and angry at – him whenever they saw him.

Warren had no clue why, just like he had no clue why Speed especially hated him. He _did_ know that eventually things were going to come to a head and there would be a fight of epic proportions.

He wasn't really worried about it, although previous experience had showed that just because he was invulnerable, he was perfectly capable of being hurt – just not killed. Completely.

There were three reasons Warren didn't just attack them himself and get it over with: he was pretty sure that they would go two-on-one, and he would suffer a lot of damage, if not lose outright; he didn't hate them himself – in fact he didn't really give a rat's ass about them except when they were bugging him – and just couldn't summon up the rage; he was pretty sure that it was his father's fight, or his mother's, not his own.

-xxx-

Warren couldn't care less about sidekicks. Not in a bad way, or a good one either; he didn't hate them and he didn't respect them – because they held absolutely no significance to him, none whatsoever.

He would never have a sidekick, or a 'head minion' or whatever villains called them; Warren was positive of this, and so he just ignored the lot altogether.

However, _they_ didn't seem to be ignoring _him_ any longer, and perhaps, he thought as the group of them sat around him, completely ignoring his boundaries, he should have taken a hint from Lash and Speed and been vicious to them all along.

-xxx-

If Warren had to pick the one person in the world that he hated most, it would be – without a moment's hesitation – the Commander. Otherwise known as Steve Stronghold.

In his mind, the hero was simply the man who had put his father in jail, the one who had crushed him live on TV (the public cheering), while Warren watched, a ten-year-old with wide eyes and flaming fists.

To Warren, it didn't matter whether or not his father belonged in jail, or if the guy in red white and blue spandex didn't seem to care that he'd just ruined a family's life. It didn't matter that Jetstream lifted the Commander into the sky for a victory lap as heavily armored police snapped a power-restraining band around Battle's arm and dragged the unconscious supervillian away into a black van. It didn't matter that his mother didn't even cry, just stared at the screen, locked between horror and hope.

All that mattered was that the Commander had taken his father out – a supervillian, yes, but his _father_ first and always.

Warren hated him with all his soul.

-xxx-

Warren liked being alone, but that didn't mean he didn't get lonely, any more than it meant that he enjoyed being the bad guy no matter what he said or did. But he couldn't let anyone close enough for it to matter in any case. Sure, the sidekicks, the hippie, and the Stronghold kid – he couldn't believe himself sometimes, but then how could _he_ continue to hate someone for what his father did? – had gotten pretty close, but they were friends. Friends were different. They mattered, they mattered a lot, but no matter how much you cared, your heart didn't beat for them, your fire didn't suddenly pledge to a name other than your own.

His father had loved his mother, and vice versa, and it had pretty much destroyed them both. Oh, now they were fine – as fine as a couple could be when one was in solitary lockup for the next several lifetimes – but they had been through so much heartbreak along the way, Warren was sometimes amazed they could look at the other with anything less than hate.

But that was what love did to you; it made a villain a family man, and led a hero to ignore the fact that her husband killed people, and it led to more trouble than anything else in the world.

Warren didn't really date.

But when Royal Pain was defeated and everyone was restored to their natural age (or perhaps a few years younger, in some of the older teachers' cases), and the dance was set back in motion, the Ice Queen – strategically positioned, he would later learn, by his side – froze her hand, he looked down at her, took his hand out of his pocket, and lit it up, holding it out to her. She smiled, and then they were holding hands and walking over to the side, and soon they began to dance.

The Ice Queen (a nickname born of both her distant and sometimes haughty attitude towards boys, and of her powers) had never really caught Warren's attention, even though she had the polar opposite of his own powers. Well, other than noticing various frozen people that she was fed up with, with amusement. It seemed that she had noticed him, though, which probably wasn't very hard to do, what with his fighting, parents, and most recently, help in defeating Royal Pain. It also seemed that she'd liked him for a while.

Warren didn't really know how he felt about that, but he did know that he liked _her_, and it was nice to have someone he didn't have to worry about burning – ever. Jenna – that was her name – seemed to resonate with something deep inside him, and somehow, they ended up dating.

And he didn't know anything about love, first-hand, but he wasn't lonely anymore, and that was good enough for Warren, though he had barriers ready to spring up at any moment should she decide to try to break his heart.

-xxx-

Warren doesn't eat chocolate, though he likes the taste, because it inevitably melts in his hand. His regular temperature is the equivalent of a dangerously high fever for anyone else, and when he 'powers up', it gets even hotter.

No matter how hot it gets in the summertime, he can still wear his leather jacket and other heavy clothes; the heat doesn't bother him at all. During winter, Warren can still stay comfortable in the same clothes as always, too. All it takes him is a little extra effort, to increase his internal temperature just a bit more to deal with the cold.

And that's why Warren doesn't understand the detention room, and is creeped out by it. It supposedly neutralizes all powers – and yet, when he walks inside, he doesn't feel any different. His veins still pump fire rather than blood, and he knows he'd still melt chocolate. Yet, when he tries to light up, nothing happens. It's just _stopped_, the flames not allowed to leave his body, and Warren gets a little bit lightheaded from the unreleased tension, which he always has to release soon after leaving the room, shooting flames from his arms.

He knows that if he had to spend any significant length of time in there, he'd go crazy, and he wonders if that's different for his father, because Barron seems sane when he visits. If so, then maybe it's something he'll learn with time, like the ability to watch someone's bones blacken without caring.

-xxx-

It's funny; though everyone remembers Barron Battle, none of them remember him like he was in high school: the popular, slightly geeky guy, with curly hair. Funny, though not incredibly handsome, and the lead in almost all the plays – beating out Steve Stronghold for the lead in _Oklahoma_, something the superhero resents to this day.

It's funny, because everyone sees Barron Battle inside Warren Peace, though really, they couldn't be more different. They don't _look_ alike… they don't _act_ alike…

It's funny.

-xxx-

He tried smoking once. It seemed appropriate. Warren Peace, Sky High's resident bad boy, the villain's son, the _pyro_… Inhaling fire? Sounded like a plan.

And it was. Until he lit up the end with his finger, put the narrow cylinder in his mouth, and breathed in.

Warren didn't cough, though it was difficult; the nicotine was something he was unused to, and he couldn't taste the fire at all. Still, he tried again, and again, until he could breathe it in and let it out easily, and that made it less choking. But surprisingly, even less enjoyable.

The cigarette was dead in his mouth – it felt like he was inhaling ash, and the nicotine added a taste that Warren really didn't like. It was just ash, bad-tasting ash, and it was far from what he'd expected.

Fire was _alive_. Always moving, breathing even, flickering around, testing its limits, growing. Fire he knew. It recognized him as a friend, and didn't hurt him, but it was independent and it had a _presence_, even if he wasn't harmed by said presence. This – this just didn't compare.

Warren crushed the cigarette in his hand and dropped it on the ground, letting it die out slowly on the pavement. Later that night, he tried lighting matches, and then sticking them in his mouth. He didn't have enough control over the flame that they would stay lit against the wet of his tongue, but they didn't burn him, and the brief flickering followed by a tiny _hiss_ was just what he needed.

-xxx-

One day Warren knows he's going to have to make a choice, but he hasn't yet, despite what people might think. Having friends that are obviously going to become heroes won't stop him from becoming a villain if he wants to or needs to.

He dreams about it, but doesn't worry about it during the day, because it's something he knows will happen the way it's meant to, whether he's forever associated with evil worse than that of his father, and crushed hopes – or whether he becomes an inspirational story for people like Layla who like to rebel against what society expects of them, and a slogan for Sky High. Either way it will be unwilling.

Warren is going to turn out how he's going to turn out, and for now, he leaves his options open and just trains. He's designed black leather armor that can resist his heat, and a phoenix unfurling wings, which drift into fire. Red flames spiral up the side of his imaginary suit, and he can easily picture himself ripping off someone's head, or heaving a car off of a pregnant woman, in it.

He never talks about it, and lets everyone else think what they will, and deep down, Warren thinks that whatever the journey, he knows how it's going to end.

-xxx-

_//Warren Peace smiled and then the fire engulfed him, spreading out, farther and farther in a bursting bubble of heat that destroyed everything within its rapidly spreading sphere, all red-blue flames and wind and a single man standing in the center, arms raised, face calm\\_

* * *

1) All tense changes were intentional.

2) This is all canon with the movie.

3) I deliberately left Warren's choice open to interpretation. It's up to you.

4) I got the idea for Barron Battle having dragon tattoos from _After The Dance_ by **Isabeaul**.

5) Soundtrack for this: _When The Day Met The Night_ by **Panic! At The Disco**. The title is a line from this song.

6) This was meant to make you think a little bit. I hope it succeeded and that you enjoyed it.


End file.
